The Secret of Tayburn Zoo: 24

Crothers cleared off as quickly as he was able, which was no surprise to Dexi. He had led them a little way forward along the path, the threat of being taken back to Neuromax headquarters constantly hanging over their heads to keep them in line. But after barely a minute or so his phone buzzed and, after briefly examining a text, he'd grinned at them all, with a quick salute.

"Alright, freakshows, you are officially off my hands. You have nothing to do with Neuromax… and you never have," he murmured. He made a big show of wiping his hands against each other, with big clapping noises punctuating the motion. "Goodbye forever!"

With that he turned and strode away, back to the van. Dexi started to follow him, but by the time she'd shaken off the surprise, he was already slamming the door behind him and reversing away from where he'd parked. He'd closed a thick, iron barred gate behind him, and Dexi heard the click and beep of an automatic lock.

She turned back to her eight companions. "So, through the bars?"

"I think we're meant to go up there," Chip said, pointing up the hill at the mansion house.

"And presumably Crothers was meant to take us there," Dexi said. She did the jerky motion that she used as a shrug. "But he couldn't be bothered, so why should we?"

She held Chip's gaze, and his eyes quickly widened and looked away. He looked around at the others, his back hunching over as he shrank into the ground. She probably shouldn't have tried to get him to lead anything.

"Thoughts, Juliet?" Dexi asked, looking first at one sleek black labrador, then at the other when she realised the first was staring at her in wide-eyed confusion.

Juliet shrugged, which she came closer to accomplishing than Dexi had. "Might as well try."

Dexi nodded, glancing quickly at Chip. He began to follow her towards the entrance gate, as did the others.

The gate was maybe fifty metres away now, and as Dexi's short, rapid steps brought her slithering along the ground towards it, she found her pace picking up even faster. By the end it was like she imagined it would feel like to chase prey, and she was not going to stop until the gate was hers.

Her snout bumped into one of the iron bars, and a spark of pain shot up it. The gate hadn't budged an inch. Well, that was fine, she wasn't trying to open it. Beside her, Lisa and Sue hopped and scurried through the gap respectively, smiling sadly at Dexi.

"I'm pretty sure I can get through too," Chip said, arriving to her right. He turned sideways and measured himself against the gap, which was maybe ten centimetres wide. "Maybe if we find a way to turn you sideways? I know what you're going to say, but it's just your turn to be undignified. Me and Juliet had ours this morning... or yesterday."

"Fine!" Dexi shouted, the slight pain mixing with her adrenaline to turn into a rising panic. Her eyes moved around in their sockets as far as they could go as she tried to encourage the others. "I know we messed up before but come on, everyone, we can-"

She gasped. That was a much, much sharper spike of pain than before. She tried to turn around, but that was difficult enough at the best of times and she could already barely feel her legs. When she did feel them, they tingled, and she couldn't quite feel their position on the ground.

"Chip," she croaked, looking up at him. With wide eyes he sprang towards her, but a moment later fell sideways against her, with the sleek, light fletching of a tranquiliser dart in his side. That explained the new spike of pain.

Dexi heard groans around her. She could still see, but her vision had narrowed, or she couldn't look down. She couldn't tell the difference. Her head felt like it was being crushed from both sides, but at the same time she was completely numb. She was on her side, looking at a spot of blue sky, her whole being still tingling but too numb to notice.

Then finally, mercifully, the blue spot she'd clung to winked out, and she closed her eyes.

---

The first thing Dexi saw was just the worst wallpaper. Like, what was Patrick thinking?

“Dexi?”

Was that Treego? It was certainly the watery rumble of a frog’s voice. But it couldn’t be Treego. Wait, why couldn’t it be Treego? Because he was still at the zoo. With the terrible wallpaper. So if Treego was here… she was back at the zoo.

Then why did he sound so concerned?

She pushed herself up but a big black and white arm surged forward and pressed her gently back down. She stared at the baby blue ceiling and watched mutely as a frowning panda face moved slowly into her vision.

“Yeah, Treego, she’s awake,” Aurora called.

But Aurora hadn’t been in the van. The van!

This time Dexi sprang up but backwards at the same time, out of Aurora’s reach. Her tail jabbed into the bottom of a sofa and she yelped, dissociating for a moment from her own vision. She screwed her eyes up and managed to regain some clarity.

The others, the eight she’d travelled with, were all still out for the count on the floor. But she was being stared at with varying levels of concern and impatience by Aurora and Treego. There was also a young monkey she thought might be called Rosie, and a few more animals she didn’t know very well. As well as one she did.

“Rita!” she screamed, and shot forward, scrambling up a different couch and forcing her vision to stop swimming as she balanced on the back. In front of her, a mirror image of herself on the back of the sofa’s other seat, was her best friend.

“Quiet…” came a murmur from the floor. Apparently Chip was awake after all.

“Rita - how are you… did Neuromax take you? And Aurora, how did you get here?” She knew her voice was ragged, trying desperately to keep up with her frantic breathing.

“Well, I was too big for the van, so Haldane brought me down by herself. Didn’t trust MacLean not to just set me free, by the sounds of it.” Aurora shrugged, and Dexi remembered being vaguely irritated about shrugging, but the thought was all buzzy and she couldn’t finish it.

“As for us,” Treego said, “We’re not at Neuromax, and of course neither were you, according to literally everyone-”

“But we just came from there!” Dexi snapped.

Treego paused. “Alright, literally everyone human. Except Patrick, presumably. And his lawyer, Josh. And to be honest I don’t think Marie really believes it either.”

Dexi frowned and stared at him. “Patrick got a lawyer?”

Treego nodded, which was really just his whole body bobbing forward. “Oh yes, a rather dashing fellow. Sounds like the young man has gained us our freedom.”

“What?” Dexi exclaimed.

Dexi watched some of her companions drag themselves to sitting positions as Treego told the story of a government who had found the experiments of rogue scientist Patrick McAfferty. They had planned to return the animals to their natural state, but activist pressure, spearheaded by one Josh MacKenzie, with cameos from Patrick’s very cute grandchildren, had convinced the public that this would be tantamount to murder.

When he was done, Dexi took a deep breath, and for once in her life chose her next words carefully. “So what you’re saying is that we’re free? We can go back to the zoo with Patrick?”

Treego smiled briefly, but it was only a flash. “That does sound lovely, doesn’t it. But honestly, I have no idea. We’re waiting for Marie to get back. You were probably the surprise she promised us, but maybe there’s another on the way.”

After a few more groggy minutes of the Neuromax nine getting themselves to lucidity, and introductions of the new dogs, mice and rabbits, the door finally flew open.

Treego cleared his throat and gestured towards the tall, dark-skinned woman who’d just burst in, white lab coat flapping behind her. “This is Marie.”

Marie glanced about the room, eyes resting briefly on each of the new arrivals. But she didn’t ask any questions, which Dexi supposed made sense if she had arranged this welcome reunion in the first place.

“Alright everyone,” she said, “Part two of today’s excitement. We have a proposal for you. We’re going to try something.”